Monday, November 7, 2011

Biology 101 Give-Away

Hey Ya'll. I've received a Biology 101: Biology According to the Days of Creation DVD set, brand spanking new, to give away this week. All because the makers of Bio 101 have released the second in the series, Chemistry 101, sent it to me to review and graciously threw in the Bio 101 set as a bonus. Love that!

We've already viewed Bio 101 and thoroughly enjoyed it! The information is ordered and sequential, the pictures gorgeous. There is a study guide that you can print out to ensure that students understand the material. Despite that it's what I would call "science lite." This would make a great spine for a high school biology course, but I wouldn't consider it a stand-alone. That being said, it's very much worth getting, if your kids love science, you have some extra curriculum dollars to invest, or you have the time and resources to ramp it up to a high school unit (Carnegie- 120- 180 hours of work), which would certainly be easy enough to do.

Some of you may want to know how this series stands on the age of the earth. From the creators of the 101 series web-site: "The objective of The 101 Series is to provide fascinating, visually–rich, and biblically–sound teaching, especially covering topics on which today's culture and Christianity conflict." Consequently, Biology 101 presents topics from a "young earth" perspective following the biblical chronology of six days of creation (with God resting on the seventh day).
Chemistry 101, so far, has been fabulous. Wes Olson starts off with a history of the field of chemistry, along the same lines as some of Tiner's books (the History of Medicine, et all). My 5th grader is taking Ellen McHenry's pre-chem this year at Tutoring Center and is fascinated, and thrilled to say that he actually understood something from his class that was confusing him, because of this DVD set. My high school junior took chemistry last year at Tutoring Center (using Prentice Hall) but is just as interested. Again, there is a study guide included, and I'm happy to see, it's almost twice as long as the Bio 101 set. Again, the photography and graphics are terrific and chemistry is simply explained. If you have a high schooler that won't be going into a science field, but needs to know the basics, this could be just the thing you are looking for. Again, I wouldn't consider it a complete high school chem course, but it would be easy enough to add to.

So, how do you enter the give-away you ask? It's simple. Follow this blog and then leave a comment, telling me you've done so (if you're already a follower, just lmk). Tweet or mention on FB about this give-away for another shot at it (again, leave a comment and lmk). That's it. I'll be announcing the winner on Nov 17!

5 Days of Teaching Creatively

Gracious Heart Homeschool Vision

To give our children a firm foundation- academically, emotionally, socially, spiritually, so that they can be carefree during childhood, pointed True North all of their earthly days and in the presence of the One True Living God for all eternity.